Nothing Left to Lose.

Note: I wrote this two and a half months ago and never published it. Now it's time.

In efforts to avoid all the autotuned, techno-beat pop/hip-hop/rock (when has it ever been okay for all three genres to sound so much alike?!) music that's playing these days, I've set my car radio to Wave 102.1. It's been nice to hear songs that remind me of Saturday mornings as a kid, or of the Sundays after church when I'd come home to find Dad out in the garage working with the table saw and his latest piece of woodwork while listening to classic rock.

Usually as soon as a song plays on a radio station that I'm unfamiliar with, I immediately skim the stations until I find a song I know. Autotune has killed that for me. I've given up. Quick aside: I have been disappointed and sometimes pleasantly surprised by how many of my generation's songs have point-blank copied or overwritten music that existed decades earlier.

On this one particular day though, I was listening to the radio and was struck by the depth of a line in a song I'd never heard before. It said, "Freedom's another word for 'nothing left to lose'." Wow. This rang so true to me.

I think as Americans we have a tendency to equate freedom with the pursuit of happiness. We are free to have, free to do. This usually means we actually have a lot to lose. Freedom occurs when we are firmly established, when we have the means to choose our own courses. The people with the most freedom are thought of as those who are rich. Who wants to be a millionaire? That "freedom" we pursue is one where we have everything to lose and we put everything on the line.

Freedom in the Bible seems to be depicted in similar manner to the way it was described in the song. When we have nothing left to lose.

In Matthew 8 we find a man who desired to follow Jesus but first wanted to bury his dad who had died. Jesus responded by saying, "Follow me and let the dead bury their own dead." Earlier in the chapter he speaks of how he has no place to lay his head. In Luke 10, he sends out disciples telling them not to bring a bag or even sandals.

Just when you think the weight of this can't increase, Jesus does it again in Luke 14, "Those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples."

I have heard many lessons on the rich, young ruler who asks Jesus what he must do to gain eternal life. For those who know the story, you know that Jesus tells him to sell all he has and give his money to the poor. You also know that after the saddened man leaves Jesus says, "Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God."

I have heard some say that we really should sell the things we have or give it away. Often these voices are guilt-ridden, as if they feel they must earn God's favor. I have heard some say that really we can have whatever material things we desire, we just have to be willing to give them up if God asks us to. Often these are the ones who have so many goods that they don't have the time or ability to hear God.

What if it's not about that? What if the question isn't about what we do or don't own? What if it is really about freedom? Freedom defined in a countercultural way.

When we lose all we have to God, we gain a freedom that transforms us. When we lose things to God, we learn Jesus' love and that it frees us from the guilt and the burden of trying to appease an angry God and from the burden of attempting to earn his favor. When we lose things to God, we learn more about what things actually matter and we learn how our materials own us and we desire to be freed more from them to learn more of God and to bring about His way of life here on Earth.

In Philippians 3:7 Paul says, "I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things."